[IdahoAcre]

Tracking info says the V61's will be delivered Thursday. It is UPS and April Fools Day. Sooooo...being they are in the Hodgkins IL facility, experience tells me they'll sit there 4-5 days before a truck fills up enough to send it West. Not likely, but would be great. Great doing business with Miller Tire. Great folks on the phone.

I could use them this weeked. I've got an 80 foot irrigation ditch full of Sycamore leaves. I planned on raking them out onto the yard and tearing them up with the mower deck and power flow blower setup. As opposed to 7 hours of using a leaf blower/sucker that I've done the last two years. I need to buy 80 feet of 12 inch pipe and close that irrigation ditch back up. That ditch has been the bane of my existence for 14 years!

Nice rear tires tmac58star! Might be to aggressive for my parade of homes lawn though (snicker, snicker). How are they on the grass?

 

[tmac58star]

So far they're great on turf and dirt...deep sandy loam, easy to stick stuff if you get too jerky or it's too wet. Eighty foot ditch, eh? If it's dry, just torch it off...but then you'll have god knows what growing in the ditch later. I use a back blade on the 430 to clean my ditches out. Had them looking/working good, then winter hit and now they're needing cleaning again...still draining like I want, but lots of oak leaves. Looking forward to a drier April...fingers crossed.

 

[army]

I replaced the old rear turf tires on my 322 with these...very grippy and not too spendy...got these online and had the tire shop guys put them on. So far, so good...like em better than bar tires.
View attachment 264914

That 322 looks tough as nails with those tires on it.

I have a 26x12-12 Field Trax tires like that. They were on my 400 for awhile. They were a bit too short though so I put them on my golf cart. Been using them for at least 10 years now. They still look almost new. I have 22x11x8's on the front. Exact same tread pattern as the rears. All four are excellent tires.

These are the smoothest tires I have. I was mowing a section of ditch with the 420 they're on a few days ago. The dead grass was long and thick and I was overlapping quite a bit. The cut grass from the previous pass was pretty bulky and bunched up in front of the deck on the left side. Eventually the 420 stopped moving and just spun the standard turf tires. I was surprised at how easily it did that. They're gentle on the grass but not much better than slicks for traction. They're 8 ply and tough as heck though.

 

[army]

Tire and wheel sizes are one of the funner things to play around with. I'm always looking for opportunities to put oversized tires on something. I love big fat buns (no yoga pants comments. I'm talking about tires! )

Had these V61's on my 400 for about 12 years. They've been trouble free so of course I like them. They're 4 ply 18 x 9 - 8's. I'm not a masochist so I didn't think twice about taking them to the tire shop. The young tire guy who mounted them definitely earned his pay. I knew he was making crap wages too so I slipped him $20 for his trouble. I told him he was only allowed to use it for beer or gas money and he quickly agreed to my terms. V61 tread looks a lot like what you see on passenger jet tires, to me anyway. I read somewhere they shed water really well.

I got the 5 lug hubs on the front of this 400 from WFM's resident brainiac back in 2006 (thanks again Chuck ). Got the V61 tires new from another WFM member in Rochester NY (Darrin Behm). Bought the 8 x 8 wheels from the surplus store and painted them yellow. They're intended for small trailers. Standard golf cart wheels are the same size but have a 1" positive offset so if you want a wider stance they're the ones to get. Only caveat is they're 4 lug, not 5 like these.

I had a pair of 18x8-8 golf cart tires and wheels on the front of my 214 using a couple 4 lug hub kits I bought on sale. The left front tire rubbed a wee bit on the side panel when cranked all the way to the left but they worked fine otherwise. I have 18 x 8 - 8's on it now from a 400. They don't rub at all but the tread is half worn off. Pretty sure they'd hit if the were new. I also had 20 x 9-10's on the 214 for a little while just fer fun. Had to put 1/2" thick spacers behind the wheels so they wouldn't rub on the side panels and even then it was iffy.

 

[IdahoAcre]

Nice pair of JD's Army!

It is a NO on installing V61's on the HF mini tire changer by myself. Will have a pro do it for me since I'm not in AK I'll be ok.

 

[IdahoAcre]

I tried for a couple of hours with plenty of soapy water, cursing, body weight and I even broke a sweat. I needed a third arm. That might have worked.

 

[army]

Nice pair of JD's Army!

Thanks

4 ply can be a bugger to work with... but the tires on the back of my 420 are 8 ply and even worse that the V61's to install or remove. I wouldn't even try unless Ironman was gonna drop by and give me a hand. When they were off the rims the tread was flat and the tires looked way too short. But when they were uninstalled they rounded up a lot and are the tallest set of 26x12-12's I have. Not sure if the ply rating has anything to do with that. Can't think of a reason it would. They actually bulged up more than they look in this pic.

 

[army]

I tried for a couple of hours with plenty of soapy water, cursing, body weight and I even broke a sweat. I needed a third arm. That might have worked.

I can confirm the 3rd arm requirement.

 

[IdahoAcre]

My buddies tire machine would not fit an 8 inch wheel. He spread the jaws on a bench vise inside the wheel to hold it tight and the 2 of us got the tire on.

I used a couple of my buddies tricks to do the 2nd one myself; leave the tube out and use vise grips on the lip of the rim to stop the tire from spinning. When I got the bead stretched about 75% of the way on I used the bead breaker part of the tire changer tool to force the tire bead below the wheel bead on the opposite side of the last 25% that needed stretching. I used a jack handle on the tire bead installer for more leverage and dead blow to pound the bead installer horizontal before it slipped out (I couldn't hold it "flat").

I did it myself in about 45 minutes. I'll paint the yellow portion of the wheel after the fact. I did wire wheel the scaly rust off the inner wheel last night and gave it a generous coating of rustoleum. Now to get the tube inside the tire by myself...

 

[army]

I have a set of 5 tire prying tools. They're flat, 18"-24" long and have different bends on the ends. They've been sitting on a steel shelf unit with my collection of bottle jacks for many years. I will likely never need that stuff but I keep that stuff around just in case. You guys all know what happens if you get rid of something. You will need it the very next day.

 

[army]

Looks like a pretty good drill press there btw. Or is it some type of milling machine?

 

[tmac58star]

This is why I don’t grudge the $10 it costs me at JimmyJuan’s tire shop, or the drive to get there.

 

[TomManson]

Looks like a pretty good drill press there btw. Or is it some type of milling machine?

Army, I like you a lot, but I have no idea what you where looking at when you made this comment, maybe a different thread? The last pic was a tire on a mounting machine??

 

[DEERE317]

Army, I like you a lot, but I have no idea what you where looking at when you made this comment, maybe a different thread? The last pic was a tire on a mounting machine??

Right side background.
Think it’s a drill press (from a high untrained non machinist’s eye)

 

[army]

Right side background.
Think it’s a drill press (from a high untrained non machinist’s eye)

I should have included the 'right side' reference myself. I fear Tom thinks I'm befuddled now. . I always liked those puzzles where they show you partial pic of something and you have to guess what it is. I'm never right but I remain optimistic.

 

[tmac58star]

I saw it...thought it was a muffler bearing press.😜

 

[IdahoAcre]

My buddy has a nice size "tire spoon" about 18". It came with the machine in his shop. Now I'm going to have to source one of those for myself, even if I never use it. Better than a screwdriver since it has round edges and they do not flex.

Good Eye Army! It is a Edlund 1B drill press, left behind by the previous homeowner. It is BIG. Allegedly off of a WWII battleship. Could be as the serial number dates it to about 1942. It has a 3 phase, 220V motor. It was not the original motor and the motor plate is not original either and mount holes weren't correct dimension. Only two mount holes were in use. Which was probably ok, since the previous homeowner did wood work.

The wiring job to make it work was SO wrong and dangerous that I never used the drill press. It was pinned against the wall for 10 years by a 72 Mustang. The Mustang is at a bodyshop, so I decided last August/September to make the drill press work.

For years I thought I'd have to re-power with a new motor or buy an expensive power inverter. Maybe they weren't widely available 10 years ago or my internet search skills were lacking. But I discovered a VFD (variable frequency device). I cleaned up the motor, cleaned grime off of entire drill press, painted the motor shell, drilled 2 new mount holes through the 7/16" plate steel with a 1/2" electric drill, rewired and installed the VFD. Now it runs on single phase 220V. The VFD was only $168.

The drill press runs like a champ! Now I have the ability to drill really thick steel. It was my most succesful "project" of the last decade. I usually have about 87 projects in the works at any given time in my little shop. Got in the way of several I had planned for the 314, which is why I'm just now getting around to fixing a leaky tire. Still gotta replace noisy bearings on the mower deck (maybe next winter).

 

[tmac58star]

That's impressive...certainly looks like it was engineered by naval machinists. I love the movie Sand Pebbles, because of the open engine on the riverboat San Pablo...steam power.

 

[IdahoAcre]

Finished my tire change project. Hopefully I didn't pinch the tube. Time will tell as I drive it around doing yard work. It inflated and popped the tire onto the bead and seems to be holding air.

 

[IdahoAcre]

oops double tapped